Free Republic

Former Rep. Mike Sodrel announced Tuesday that he will run for Indiana’s 9th District Congressional House seat in 2008. It will be his fourth election running against current 9th District Rep. Baron Hill. Sodrel, a Republican, ran against Hill, a Democrat, in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Hill defeated Sodrel in 2002, though Sodrel won the seat in 2004. Hill was reelected in the last election, winning by a margin of less than 5 percent, according to a press release from Dr. Eric Schansberg, the third 9th district congressional seat candidate. “A lot of voters voted for change in 2006,” Sodrel...

Tonight is the night that March Madness ends in the National Championship Game between The Gators of Florida vs. The Buckeyes of Ohio State.

MOSCOW, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. missile defense plans in Europe could set off a new arms race, an advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Gleb Pavlovsky, an influential political adviser to the Russian president, warned that the U.S. drive to deploy ballistic missile defense, or BMD assets in Poland and the Czech Republic could mean that the Bush administration was targeting Russia, as it had done during the Cold War, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. "This surely is the beginning of an arms race in some sense," Pavlovsky said. "Which is all the more unjustified given...

New World wins again in a vintage rematch By Sally Pook (Filed: 25/05/2006) At the time it was unthinkable. French wine, surely the finest in the world, was put to a blind taste test against the best California could offer. It was 1976, the tasting was in Paris, and wine from the New World was considered no better than cheap Retsina. Imagine the heart-stopping moment, then, when nine experts, all French, ruled that Californian wine was superior. Steven Spurrier at the London tasting yesterday "You cannot underestimate how much the 1976 tasting shocked, and then revolutionised, the wine industry," said...

The proponents of last year's failed parental-notification initiative are back, pushing a nearly identical measure for this year's November ballot. Buoyed by $2 million from conservative financier and newspaper owner James Holman, the campaign already has collected 700,000 signatures--100,000 more than is needed--to place a measure on the fall ballot. The campaign intends to turn those signatures, and more, in to counties across the state by mid-May, setting up a rematch of last year's heated abortion debate during the fall's gubernatorial election. "We've gathered more than 700,000 signatures and we are planning on qualifying for the November ballot," said campaign...

Jindal Far Ahead of Blanco in Rematch Poll The first statewide poll pitting Gov. Kathleen Blanco against a challenger does not bode well for her. Congressman Bobby Jindal led her 53-31 percent in a 500-sample December survey by Multi-Quest, a Metairie polling firm. This week, Blanco repeated her intention to seek re-election in 2007, stating that the recovery effort could change many attitudes by then. Jindal has been making appearances around the state and has told some elected officials that he plans to run again for governor in 2007.